New AI System To Tell Exactly When You Need An Umbrella

Weather forecasts are notoriously bad at predicting the chances of impending rain – as anyone who has been drenched after leaving the house without an umbrella can testify.

- Linda Geddes

Now, scientists at Google DeepMind have developed an artificial intelligence-based forecasting system that they claim can more accurately predict the likelihood of rain within the next two hours than existing systems.

Today’s weather forecasts are largely driven by powerful numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems, which use equations that describe the movement of fluids in the atmosphere to predict the likelihood of rain and other types of weather. “These models are really amazing from six hours up to about two weeks in terms of weather prediction, but there is an area – especially around zero to two hours – in which they perform particularly poorly,” said Suman Ravuri, a staff research scientist at DeepMind in London and co-lead on the project.

“Precipitation nowcasting” is an attempt to fill this blind spot.